As seen in the hit documentary Three Identical Strangers • “[A] poignant memoir of twin sisters who were split up as infants, became part of a secret scientific study, then found each other as adults.”—Reader’s Digest (Editors’ Choice) WINNER OF A BOOKS FOR A BETTER LIFE AWARD Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn’t until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she … mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. What she found instead was shocking: She had an identical twin sister. What’s more, after being separated as infants, she and her sister had been, for a time, part of a secret study on separated twins.
Paula Bernstein, a married writer and mother living in New York, also knew she was adopted, but had no inclination to find her birth mother. When she answered a call from her adoption agency one spring afternoon, Paula’s life suddenly divided into two starkly different periods: the time before and the time after she learned the truth.
As they reunite, taking their tentative first steps from strangers to sisters, Paula and Elyse are left with haunting questions surrounding their origins and their separation. And when they investigate their birth mother’s past, the sisters move closer toward solving the puzzle of their lives.
Praise for Identical Strangers
“Remarkable . . . powerful . . . [an] extraordinary experience . . . The reader is left to marvel at the reworking of individual identities required by one discovery and then another.”—Boston Sunday Globe
“Absorbing.”—Wired
“[A] fascinating memoir . . . Weaving studies about twin science into their personal reflections . . . Schein and Bernstein provide an intelligent exploration of how identity intersects with bloodlines. A must-read for anyone interested in what it means to be a family.”—Bust
“Identical Strangers has all the heart-stopping drama you’d expect. But it has so much more—the authors’ emotional honesty and clear-eyed insights turn this unique story into a universal one. As you accompany the twins on their search for the truth of their birth, you witness another kind of birth—the germination and flowering of sisterly love.”—Deborah Tannen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of You Just Don’t Understand
“A transfixing memoir.”—Publishers Weekly
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Really well written and great story about multiples separated at birth. Compelling look at how this affected and changed their lives.
A tragic result of cruel “study” of twins. Really interesting as to the simply truths about the likes and dislikes of identical twins. Having an adoptee in the family made this even more profound.
An interesting true story examining the experiences to two women who discover they are twins separated as infants, and their feelings about what they discover.
I have had several sets of twins as friends in my life and have seen their problems. I am fascinated by the terrible study done in NYC and wanted to know more.
We are all original – or are we? Picture someone who looks just like you, separated at birth and decades later found. This is such a story. Interesting story of a twin who was delighted to be found and the other . . . . . not so much. I enjoyed this book and appreciated the honest portrayal of the journey these two women took. Happy with the ending.
Imagine being an adult living as an ex-Pat in Paris and learning that you’re an identical twin! Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein both knew that they were adopted as babies. Each had a brother who was also adopted and grew up in a loving family. The adoption agency through which their birth mother and their adoptive parents worked purposely tried to separate twins and then study their development in a nature vs nurture experiment. Read this amazing autobiography by the two women whose lives individually were remarkably similar.
Hard to believe these things still happened in an era where we should have learned from the past.
A fascinating account of twins separated at birth and reuniting.
Identical Strangers chronicles the story of Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein adopted into loving families in the late 1960. The story would end there, but for the fact that Elyse conducted what she thought was a routine adoption search and was told that she had an identical twin. Identical Strangers is their story, but also the story of what happens when research runs amok. Elyse and Paula were initially part of a research study, presumably to look at the role of nature versus nurture in childrearing. While the pair was eventually excluded from the study, the adoptive families were not told that their daughters were actually twins.
Many of you will have seen Three Identical Strangers, the story of triplets who were part of the same study. Reading this book, and seeing that documentary, raises disturbing questions about the Jewish Adoption agency (Louise Wise Services) and about research practices of the times. Why would the researchers separate twins (who bond so quickly and deeply). Were the children actually being studied to look at familial mental illness? Were the families intentionally given children who could easy develop a debilitating mental illness, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and not told that this could be the case.
Both Elyse and Paula, deeply intelligent and perceptive women, set out to find out what they can about their origins and the study. While denied access to study materials, and forced to make some suppositions based on their own interviews, what they find is both deeply disturbing and also thought provoking.
A good read, although the dual points of view did take some getting used to at first. As a psychologist myself, I hope that the writing process allowed these brave women to work through their origins and come to some sense of peace.
Just couldn’t get into ir
An amazing and interesting true story of twin girls separated and adopted. They find each other in their 30’s.
What if you woke up one day to find out that you have an awesome identical twin. How hard would it be to find this person? To find out the story of how you we’re separated as infants, what would you risk?
i thought the book was written well allowing each sister to tell her side of being a new twin.
I learned so much about nature vs nurture. I highly recommend this book
Read it straight through.
I have always been fascinated with anything having to do with twins. This is non-fiction about identical twins that are separated within the first few months of life. They were adopted and had no knowledge of the others existence. They were part of a twin study experiment examining the influence of nature vs nurture. This type of experiment would be deemed unethical today. I found it very interesting.
Too much drama, too much blab, blab. Not what I would expect from discovering one had an identical twin..both seem self absorbed…
This is the true story of a pair of identical twins who were separated several months after birth and adopted by different families. The girls grew up not knowing they had a twin. The parents were, also, unaware. Once they discover each other they attempt to fill in the missing pieces of their lives. The journey uncovers other separated twins (even some triplets) and sheds light on a secret study conducted by some well known psychologists.
A very thought- provokilng, disturbing read.
Identical Strangers has all the heart-stopping drama you’d expect. But it has so much more—the authors’ emotional honesty and clear-eyed insights turn this unique story into a universal one. As you accompany the twins on their search for the truth of their birth, you witness another kind of birth—the germination and flowering of sisterly love.